Hallow's Eve
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: 'It's the eve of my night at the gallows, and I know nothing of it.' And the last happy moment he recalls is the first to be taken from him in Azkaban.


**A/N:** Written for the Becoming the Tamer King Challenge, Harry Potter Style – Registration Task (write a fic in first person POV). Also for the Monthly Oneshot Competition, prompt #033 – Hallow's Eve.

Also…I'm not sure quite what happened with this. Sirius wound up pretty much writing himself. I hate it when my muses do that usually, but I'm exhausted from packing and quadruple checking paperwork, so I'll let my muses go this time.

* * *

**Hallow's Eve**

It's the eve of my night at the gallows, and I know nothing of it. Instead, I'm sitting by the fire, charming the Potters' ceiling to drop flakes of snow on our private little wonderland, and sprouting a senselessly cheery smile on my face.

There's a war raging outside, but it's easy to forget that in the face of innocence. And little Harry is just a year and a bit and enthralled by any moving, sparkling thing. If that's not the image of innocence, then there is nothing in the world that can be innocent.

I don't have to remember that Marlene and her family were killed barely a few months ago. I don't need to remember the Prewetts, fighting to the last. Or Edgar Bones and his wife, leaving a child just a little older than Harry behind. All I have to dig up is how to make my sparks change colours, or how to make the snow fall from the ceiling, or how to cast a warming charm. But even as happy and distracting as Harry is, even he is a little mellow in this quaint little home in Godric's Hollow.

James says it's because they're trapped, bound under the protection of the Fidelus as much as it protects them. For my part, I'm grateful Dumbledore has the cloak for Order business, because that keeps James inside, and alive. Because they _are_ safe, even if it's not as bright and cheerful as a safe place in the world should be, because that safe place is surrounded by bloodshed and holding a man and a woman who want to fight.

But they have Harry, and Harry is the light that, even when a little mellower than a year-old child of a Marauder should be. And it's enough for now to be able to watch him try to grab flakes of snow in clumsy fists.

. . .

That memory is the first to go when the Dementors come at me. All that stays is hatred and desire: the desire to fix my wrongs, to make all this right, to fix _whatever damn thing went wrong_ – but I can't do that from Azkaban.

I don't even get a lifetime to wallow in my mistake, because the Dementors leave little room for conscious thought. I realise quickly I can't lose my mind – even while it slips ever so slowly away from me. Little Harry playing with conjured snowflakes. Little Harry flying on a toy broomstick barely a foot off the ground. A Harry that looks small enough for the animagus part of me to swallow – and as the thought slips away into the chill, I feel my mind a little lighter, and my body closer to the ground.

I learn the animagus in me somewhat protects me from the chill, and I sort through my memories. Lily with her belly swelling. James looking as though he's about to faint as Lily announces her pregnancy. James and Lily on their wedding day. James' face when Lily accepts his proposal, when she accepts his first date, when he first lays eyes on her… And then there's Remus, poor Remus with whom I've left so much regret. Rage swells in my once again as I recall the true traitor in our midst, the rat that destroyed us all in a fell swoop as we trusted him to the last.

Hot tears roll down my cheeks and I am a human again, human and bitter and clinging to that regret as the happy memories of my best friend and his wife slip away.

. . .

I cling to some things now, those that the Dementors can't take away. Like my regret, which gives me purpose if not the happiness to brighten my eyes and heart. But this is my punishment, my consequence, and I am accepting of it. The gallows have swung unexpectedly and taken most of my head; what remains is all that will keep me alive and sane.

Innocence is gone: a thing that made the little snow globe in a large grey world a paradise, and the grey world itself a bearable place. There is nothing but hatred, regret and desire. Hatred for myself, for failing my friends. Hatred for Pettigrew, whose name I cannot think without the longing of blood and flesh devouring me. Desire for another chance, a way to set the world straight again, a world where those memories I've lost can become memories once more.

I am more animal now than human, because a human needs happiness like food and water. The Dementors leave me much alone when I'm in my dog form, and in that I can look around, and think, and not cling to my shreds of sanity so hard my lips bleed with blood.

And when I feel bones crunch beneath my canine teeth, I can think of Peter Pettigrew's little rat body crushed in my jaws and feel alive.


End file.
